Homemade Goat's Cheese - Vegetarian Rennet and Lemon Juice

On to a new chapter in living foods (and increasing healthy gut bacteria) here with some exploration in cheese making, vegetarian rennet and all things to do with working my tiny bit of goat’s milk that I am getting each day.

Right now we have one goat that is milking – she has 3 kids on her, so we don’t take (or get) very much. And another goat who is a maiden milker but is due to have her kids at the beginning of May or so.

Not much milk at the moment – but hopefully more to come soon enough. The bit I do get goes mostly to my children, however I have been saving some over the past few days to try my hand at a little farmhouse cheese.

I have gone to a couple cheese making classes and read/studied lots about this wonderful art – so this week I decided to give it a try with my precious goat’s milk. However, my plan was to started out easy and simple either way.

To begin with I decided to make my own rennet – I don’t like the thought of using rennet from another species (animal rennet usually comes from calf stomach) and goat’s are vegetarians, so I thought – make some vegetarian rennet.

There are several plants apparently that are able to provide the necessary enzymes to get cheese making off to a good start. One of them is nettle – today I boiled some nettle (it was dried from last year) for 30 minutes and allowed it to steep, then added a little salt.

I then took 1 liter of raw goat’s milk and warmed it to about 25C, added a tablespoon or so of the nettle rennet and about 3 tablespoons lemon juice and stirred for a few minutes. Then I let it sit in the stainless steel pot for about an hour or so to see what might happen.

When I checked it – I could see the separation of curds and whey – so I poured it out into a strainer covered with layers of muslin cloth and placed the strainer over a large pot to catch the dripping whey.

This sat and drained down for another hour or so – and then I scooped the solid cheese out of the cloth and placed it into a bowl. This was salted with sea salt, sprinkled with homegrown garlic chives and promptly eaten!

Yum! And it was that easy….Now onwards and upwards!

April

Homemade goat's cheese - with sea salt and garlic chives